Eco-anxiety’s role in information avoidance induced by climate change communication

Abstract

Framing messages so that their effectiveness is increased is a crucial “art” in today's world, where the information environment is often overloaded, being increasingly difficult to “catch” individual’s attention and motivate them to act. This is often the case with climate change communication. Hence, this research aimed to analyse how communication framing as a climate crisis or emergency, could reduce or increase the probability of individuals avoiding related information or engage in sustainable behaviour, as a strategy to adapt to climate change. Moreover, the role of eco-anxiety as a moderator of such relationship was also studied, namely as a motivator for defensive information avoidance. To study this, a quantitative method with an experimental design was implemented with 215 participants. Contrary to initial expectations, globally, eco-anxiety did not exhibit significant moderating effects on information avoidance. However, findings indicated that while urgency (crisis / emergency) in climate change messaging did not directly influence information avoidance, it significantly impacted behavioural engagement, particularly among individuals with lower eco-anxiety. The results seemingly indicate that individuals' anxiety levels may need to be taken into consideration, when framing information highlighting the urgency of climate change, to“catch” individuals’ attention and motivate them to act.

Date of Award	2 May 2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Rui Filipe Gaspar de Carvalho (Supervisor)